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Music

Hello, everyone. I realise that it has been forever since I have last blogged on here, but this past Saturday night, I rolled on doing to R Lo’s Pub & Grub, a bar and grill on Fisher Ferry Street in my hometown of Thomasville, to see one of my musician friends, Phillip Peace, and his band, the PeaceTrain Band, play a show. These guys play an awesome set each time I see them perform, and Saturday night was no exception.

The PeaceTrain Band entertained the audience with original songs like Rollin’ On Down and Hard Times And Harder Liquor along with cover versions of hits by Neil Young, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Collective Soul. The lead vocal duties were shared by Phillip with his husky tenor and lead guitarist Joe Parsons with his warm baritone.

Before their R Lo’s gig, the PeaceTrain Band also performed at a cancer research benefit show in Greensboro for a very special reason –their beautiful and talented keyboardist/flutist Sylvia McNeill is a cancer survivor whose strength and courage, I’m pretty sure, is inspiring others. Unfortunately, I am driven to add that cancer has affected my family in a more negative matter because both my sister and my mother has different forms of cancer before they passed away. This disease affects more than just the people who have it but also their families, friends, and others in their social inner circles. Be sure to get checked regularly, eat more healthy meals, and exercise regularly to reduce your risk of getting cancer.

If you have not heard the PeaceTrain Band or seen them perform yet, search for them on Google or Bing and check them out. They rock! Also, check out Phillip’s other band, White Light, and their brand of acoustic rock augmented with the best three-part harmony in the business.

Remember the songs Kryptonite, When I’m Gone, and Let Me Go? Well, not only were they huge hits for the Mississippi-based alternative rock band 3 Doors Down more than a decade ago, but they featured the awesome lead guitar riffs of original axeman Matt Roberts, who has just sadly passed away from a prescription drug overdose at just 38 years of age.

I will admit that when 3 Doors Down’s breakthrough hit, Kryptonite, was first released in 2000, I thought that they were ripping off One by Metallica because Roberts’ melodic guitar riff sounded almost similar hence the fact that both songs were recorded in the key of B minor. Luckily, Hetfield and company did not dub Roberts and the band, which also included tenor-voiced lead singer Brad Arnold, unforgiven with any sort of legal action, but 3DD continued to produce a steady stream of hit singles, which also included Be Like That, Here Without You, and Let Me Be Myself. Roberts’ guitar work and songwriting abilities on the band’s albums and singles until his departure from 3DD in 2012 are nothing short of remarkable and extraordinary, and his contributions to rock music are among those that will never be forgotten. Thank you, Matt, for helping bring some great music to the world.

As I am pretty sure you were, I was shocked to find out that #Prince was found dead in his Minneapolis-area studio when this news broke today. This may sound cliche, but this announcement is as sad as those of the deaths of Elvis Presley, John Lennon, and Michael Jackson because like these other artists, Prince was a music icon who was in a class by himself.

As someone who grew up during the 80s and early 90s, I vividly remember hearing Prince’s records like Little Red Corvette, Raspberry Beret, Kiss, and Diamonds And Pearls on the radio. These are more than just records; they are masterpieces because of the way that his compositions were arranged and his instrumentations were augmented by his phenomenal baritone-to-countertenor vocal range. As for his work as an actor, Purple Rain is among his best work not just as a motion picture but his best work collectively because his work ethic reflected in everything he did.

Prince Rogers Nelson, aka The Artist Formerly Known As The Unpronounceable Love Symbol, may have been as maniacal about his privacy as the late Michael Jackson and veteran music producer Mutt Lange have been about theirs, but through his work, I feel that the world knew as much about him as he would let us know. He will be truly missed, and as his recordings continue to play on the radio, his spirit still lingers among us. May you rest in peace, Prince.

This video contains reflections about Prince and his musical legacy. Check it out.

Sir George Martin, the legendary producer who was at the helm of most of the Beatles’ biggest hits, has passed away at age 90. Aside from the Fab Four, “the fifth Beatle,” as he was known, also produced recordings for such artists as America, Celine Dion, Sir Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Sir Paul McCartney (and Wings), and Michael Jackson. Martin’s contribution to the music industry as not only a producer but also as a composer, arranger, and music executive is remarkable and will never be forgotten.

Just this morning, I learned that entertainer George Gaynes has just passed away at age 98. He was know for his roles in Tootsie and the Police Academy movies, but I also remember him as photography/building manager/foster parent Henry Warnimont on Punky Brewster. George was also a singer with a very powerful baritone voice, and one of my favourite vocal performances of his was featured in an episode of Punky (in which the late Andy Gibb guess starred as a piano teacher) where he sang the following lyric: